


Orpheus with a Violin

by Mithen



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Angst, Dreams, Hope, M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 13:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has the same dream again:  the cave, the music, the lost soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orpheus with a Violin

The dream again (yet real, somehow): the bleak stone caves, the passage upward. There is music somewhere, a sweetly keening, desperate lament that calls him onward. The darkness is total, and yet he can see, walking in front of him--

His heart leaps and he leaps with it, but he cannot reach Sherlock for all his effort, he can only follow helplessly in his wake as they rise together.

John puts out his hand; the stones gleam through misty sinews. But it's all wrong, it's Sherlock who's dead, not him. Sherlock whose soul is lost and wandering, not his.

He calls Sherlock's name: his voice makes no sound, and yet the resolute shoulders before him stiffen, the steps falter. John sees Sherlock's hands shaking, and instead of hope, terror rises up to seize him; with a certainty cold as fangs sinking into his flesh, he knows that if Sherlock turns to look back he is lost forever.

Then the proud head lifts once more, and Sherlock strides into the dark without a backward glance, and John is saved.

When he wakes, John will remember that moment, the pain and the triumph of it together: as if Sherlock were alive and he the ghost, as if only the wild sweet music of Sherlock's mind could summon him from the empty world beyond.


End file.
